Parish council would like housing developments to be linked by new road

Thorney Parish Council has said a new road should be built along the village’s southern boundary to link new housing developments.

Currently two developments are planned – Woburn Drive and Park Farm. The two are very close together, but while the plans for Park Farm include a new access road off the old A47 to avoid traffic using Sandpit Road, the Woburn development has Woburn Drive, a narrow residential road, as its only access.

The Parish Council has not objected to housing development there, but in 2013, when the initial application was made, it expressed concern over the use of Woburn Drive as the only access.

Now, in a new appeal to Peterborough City Council, they have said that a better strategy for infrastructure should be put in place. Their suggestion is for a road linking any new developments to the south of the village, perhaps also with access from Whittlesey Road right through to Wisbech Road east of the village.

In a statement, the Parish Council says it had hoped that the potential for the new Park Farm access road to link with the Woburn Site would have been more fully considered by Larkfleet Homes, which is the developer.

“We feel that such a link could, in the long term, allow the elimination of Woburn Drive as the means of access to the Woburn site other than, perhaps, as a means of emergency access.

“It is a great shame that the Woburn Site proposals seem to indicate a localised, self-contained enclave of housing that pretty much ignores, by the nature of its layout, the possibility of future development on any of its boundaries.

“Piecemeal, inward-looking planning of this kind cannot be in the best interests of the City Council’s obligations to provide good, well-planned and fully considered residential development.

“It would seem appropriate that a fundamental strategy for infrastructure for development on the south side of Thorney be put in place if the best solutions for this area are to be achieved. One of the main aspects of this could be a road that links any new development in this area. The new road proposed as part of the Sandpit Site development would be an ideal start.

“It would provide access from Wisbech Road to any new development in this area with the possibility of an eventual connection across to the Whittlesey Road.

“It would seem short-sighted if this was not given proper consideration at this stage. We are not clear otherwise as to the real need for the new road at the Sandpit site.

“We suggest that the pair of residential units immediately to the south of the lake on the Woburn Site are eliminated in order that clear provision is made in this location for the possibility of a future road connection to the site to the east.

“We are not arguing against development of this site but we feel strongly that it ought to take account of what may, in the future, take place adjacent to its boundaries.”

There are currently no further plans for housing to the south of the village, but the city council wants 250 homes to be built in Thorney. With existing developments (approved and planned) accounting for about 200 dwellings, that means another 50 homes could be built and a road linking Whittlesey Road round to Wisbech Road, east of the village, would open the way for farmland to the west of the Woburn Drive development to be built upon.

I agree with Nigel Simons on this, a new road linking the two would be beneficial.

If we are talking about the developments having boundaries that could accommodate further development still, Then surely a new road linking the two would be essential.

I would suggest adding 80 homes to use the existing Sandpit Road for access would be a disaster. With the likes of the school run where we have vehicles parked all down one side of the road, and the residents at the bottom of the road without driveways who park on the road, 80-160 (assuming up to two per home) new vehicles will have a massive detrimental impact on the road and on those that live here.